Dram, Blackheart Manor, and Airships

[jaxa]

It seems like these topics deserve a little more thorough treatment than status updates.

 

Watch "Blackheart Manor" Briefing:

Watch airship demo from Dram: http://www.youtube.c...ch?v=oMoELdoWlY

Watch airship AI navigation:

 

Just to kick off the discussion, a selection from our fine sidebar:

 

Those airships are amazing! What's up with the health shields though?

 

What bugs me more: Is Dram trying to create a new game? This is sooo un-TDM.

 

Yes, it's getting hard to imagine how that could be used except in its own game.

 

Looks like it might be TDWoWM ... The Dark WoW Mod.

 

I'd sure play the hell outta that TDM dirigible hybrid. IMHO lots of nifty stealth being a stowaway...

 

My opinion: Daylight missions, complex scripting, and even dirigibles are not new ground/air for Thief (II). When you're playing a complex mission or campaign, it's possible that not the entire mission will involve stealth objectives, and of course the purpose of a mission is to fulfill the objectives. If those objectives involve stealing a blimp, maneuvering it and brazenly shooting down another blimp with cannons, that's what I'm going to do (with a twinkle in my eye). I'm fairly confident that if Dram can pump out this kind of awesomeness, it's also within his capabilities to tie it all in with a well-built and sensical mission.

 

Disclaimer: Yeah, I know some of you are being sarcastic.

 

To the fun stuff! Dram's The Way to Blackheart Manor video was what hooked me into TDM in the first place, and it might be finally coming out! Also I read that this mission was what inspired the team to raise the maximum limits on vertices and other stuff.

Edited June 9, 2011 by jaxa

[nbohr1more]

Dram's quite an artist.

 

Without much knowledge of his team involvement, it looks like his changes and additions reflect a youthful notion of the mod. As if it were formative. We regulars feel like the mod is a trusty old friend with locked-in conventions but it seems Dram is yet treating TDM as a blank sheet for possibilities.

 

I'm sure that there are thematic disagreements over his material but I am also just as sure that even his most ardent critic has drool on their chin over the release of his work.

 

Fidcal has already stated (at TTLG) that the BHM release is still slated for farther into the future so let's not get our engines going and either asphyxiate (holding breath) or dehydrate (drool to death).

 

Let's all hope that Dram gets a healthy amount of Dark Radiant time between his real life activities and professional game development career.

 

Cheers Dram.

 

Edited June 9, 2011 by nbohr1more

[jaxa]

Managed to find a "The Flying Age" preview video for comparison:

[nbohr1more]

By the way,

 

Nobody has mentioned Jesps mission "Pandora's Box" yet...

[jaxa]

*Facepalm* Forgot. I was pretty excited to play it, it was short and sweet, and I think it was the first mission I played to feature some swinging light fixtures. Other than that I was disappointed at the player death from jumping off the side - Flying Age definitely wins in that respect.

[Melan]

I am for TDM branching into other setting/gameplay possibilities. Those gorgeous videos are just proof that it can be done - and done very well!

 

(Also, let us not forget Komag's Swing)

[SiyahParsomen]

Pandora's Box occurs on one of the most original places in darkmod universe. It would be my fav mission if it was not that short.

 

Dram is kicking hard D3 capabilities and I really like to watch his work.

[STiFU]

As far as I know, the airships are completely unrelated to BHM and I think Dram was just doing burnout prevention. Sometimes you just gotta do something new...

[jaxa]

Yeah no question about that. The updated briefing pretty much cements what was known about BHM. The airships just work to improve the mythos of Dram because they are incredibly awesome.

[Shadowhide]

radiosity inside the airship is very good

[Glyph Seeker]

What got me excited looking over Dram's stuff was actually how pretty and stark the daylight areas were - that tower looks exactly like a Menoese beacon / lighthouse I've been doodling. I love the idea of a daylight mission where the shadows of a crypt or the interior of some arid fortress are both a place of danger and your only respite.

[Springheel]

I don't think anyone is denying that it is fascinating to see what can be done in TDM, or that the end result is very cool. But in terms of usability...how many TDM missions can you realistically pilot a combat airship in before it starts to get a bit ridiculous? Are we going to give Bridgeport an airport to regulate all this traffic?

 

There are going to be very cool branches of TDM (I'm looking forward to the day someone creates a 'steal from the dragon' fantasy mission) that should remain branches.

[7upMan]

I don't think anyone is denying that it is fascinating to see what can be done in TDM, or that the end result is very cool. But in terms of usability...how many TDM missions can you realistically pilot a combat airship in before it starts to get a bit ridiculous? Are we going to give Bridgeport an airport to regulate all this traffic?

 

Thinking about it, I can imagine having a map with airships as part of a campaign. Think of a campaign where your task is infiltrate a Builder outpost where they are supposed to secretly work on something your employer wants to get his hands on.

 

As your means of retreat (say, a boat) gets broken/destroyed, you have no choice but to explore the island, just to find a hangar with three of those beauties in it. At the moment the Thief sets off with the hi-jacked airship, the two others go after him. He then will have to find a way to maneuver them out/shoot them down to reach his destination safely.

 

 

That's just an idea, but I think that experienced mappers could find ways to implement this without making it utterly ridiculous. The possibilities are infinite.

 

 

[Springheel]

That's just an idea, but I think that experienced mappers could find ways to implement this without making it utterly ridiculous.

 

Yes, once, or maybe twice. But after that? Airships are supposed to be extremely rare and experimental, not a regular means of travel just waiting around in airport hangers.

 

Of course, you can make a whole series of daylight "airship missions" which would no doubt be loads of fun. But they shouldn't be considered part of the core TDM experience any more than dragon riding would be.

[lowenz]

By the way,

 

Nobody has mentioned Jesps mission "Pandora's Box" yet...

Poor Jesp

[Baddcog]

What about taking an airship only because it passes a certian tower, and right when it passes the tower you gotta leap!

[demagogue]

I'm a fan of innovative branches too.

 

I even prefer them staying branches because it's bad for DarkMod & the branch both to try to integrate different gameplays for the sake of doing it. I think a game should pare down to its core mechanics, I mean there can be a reasonable amount of flavor & variety, but it should stay authentic to its mechanics.

 

Then if you want other mechanics like Mirror's Edge moves, IF features, economic gameplay, total open-world, radically different settings (scifi, pure fantasy, contemp), even multiplayer and stand-alone, then you really need a total branch to do it justice anyway. I mean if you're going to have good gameplay and be ambitious about it (not just a minor tangent you want for a single FM, then it's okay to stay in-mod), but for a big idea I think you should craft a core mechanic from the inside and make it seamless and fit with the rest of the game. And that pretty much means a branch that should stay a branch.

...................

 

Two things I think should go along with that though.

(1) There should be a place people can talk about branches separate from the mod, maybe a separate site like a fan site, or maybe just an understanding for certain projects that they intend to stay branches and that's cool.

 

(2) I wish there were an easy way to flip from one branch to another. I mean some kinds of branches are easier than others to revert to, but generally sort of a hassle. But since it's a fan-driven thing anyway, maybe the extra self-driven effort is part of what makes it appealing anyway. Reminds me of enhancement work on commercial games that some fans like to do.

 

(3) Ok a third thing too. There's also the issue of dividing forces. Branches are fun, but some of them might not sustain their own independent game nor appropriate for Dark Mod, while TDM itself perpetually could use more fan-contributions to improve it and work might be put to better use sticking with TDM even with its limits. (Limits can be both inspiring & binding). Not sure there's an absolute right answer where to draw lines with that, given all the different things people are interested in. Who can say what's "better" to work on? There can be good reasons for & against all sorts of projects at the same time. But it's just something to think about.

[Dram]

Whoa, it seems my airships have started to worry a few people, which I can perfectly understand. The idea of introducing airships was mostly to see if TDM could do it, just like with the expansiveness of BHM, which was a test of what TDM could do (different environments etc), though the problem with BHM was that I took way too long to do it, and it's still not out yet, which is entirely my fault. Just to clarify though, the airships are NOT meant to be used in BHM, just in case anyone was afraid.

 

In reality I intend to use the airships in a real-time mini-world campaign where you play as the captain of an airship and can fight for one of two sides, denoted by their coloring of blue and yellow. Or for pirates, which have black ships. This was something I was doing in my spare time, and I intend to have day/night cycles etc, so it is not really a true TDM mission, but more of a tech demo for TDM. I can understand the conservative approach to avoid TDM spanning into a weird fantasy game, but at the same time, a little harmless side-tracking remains just that, harmless. Just like with the crazy T1/2 FMs that are made, this should be considered as such, and does not represent what the core experience is.

 

Apart from the airship, I planned to span it into a sea-faring galleon, with sails etc, which is something that is probably more practical for TDM, but still slightly off from the core experience. In any case, at least there will be the addition of a large galleon model and galleon airship model, if nothing else.

 

Truth be told, I had been considering whether it was a good idea to create such a project within TDM, to avoid unnecessarily scaring members that TDM is taking a dive off the deep end, but in the end, it is something that does not harm TDM, or at least I believe so. I fully respect the approach of not wanting it in the core mod however, so if people are against it being there, then I've no problem with removing it, and would create my own separate mini-mod for it, to avoid the confusion of it being a "core" experience.

 

Lastly, it was mostly because I just missed playing Air Buccaneers for UT2003, which was missing a few aspects I'd hoped would be improved upon (larger ships and areas, and deeper battles). That was an awesome mod, and I wanted to take a shot at creating that gameplay myself.

 

 

With regards to the health shields, that's something a little different, and more controversial, hence no mention of it anywhere. I made a small mini-addon which introduces the classic T1/2 HUD, as can be seen from the shields (and also a breath bar a la T1/2), and also adjusts climbing speeds, walking speeds, etc to what I find closer to the originals. Though since that is only my opinion I do not want that AT ALL considered an "official" approach.

 

 

As for updated BM briefing etc, that was only because I had been updating my website, www.dramthethief.com with content which I had created and so on, and needed the newest version of the briefing up (which differed in one or two places).

[nbohr1more]

Wow!

 

Thanks for the update Dram!

 

The airship demo is indeed a great technical demonstration and I still say I would "play the hell out of that" if it ever became available in either TDM or as a standalone.

[demagogue]

Yeah I'd love a game like that, and would like it to be the full on experience if possible. That it'd be made on top of Darkmod is all the better AFAI'm concerned.

 

I remember playing around with Space:1889 and Sky Galleons of Mars back in the day (a P&P RPG and "boardgame"), and the anime Last Exile had epic sky galleon battles that I loved watching (the air battles especially). I've always wanted a game giving them justice. There's a Unity game, but it's a gimmicky browser game. Crimson Skies is great fun but also a different thing. Didn't know about Air Buccaneers; I could look into it.

 

In my mind I'd want it to be a kind of hybrid... where you can free roam through the world, with FPS style interactions, but get in the airships and have air battles. Also my own bias, I'd like it to have an economic aspect, where you're conveying goods or can pirate other airships, and you buy hangers and ship upgrades/weapons, and the prices of goods vary across the world, like my old favorite game Hardwar with FPS.

[jaxa]

The trailer for the upcoming Three Musketeers remake suggests it contains some similar scenes of airship combat. In 3d, no less.

 

[ungoliant]

my soul just died a little watching that trailer. I think I'm going to be sick.

[Tels]

my soul just died a little watching that trailer. I think I'm going to be sick.

 

Hm, yeah, I know what you mean. Not only does any sort of trailer or film now have to have 3 cuts per second (and half of them are back to the same scene, only 1.6 seconds later), but no, they also have to have the cuts now fade to black and back to the picture in 0.1 second, too. So statistically 50% ofthe trailer is just black. It might compress better and eat up less bandwith, but for me it just starts to introduces a sudden urge to throw my monitor from the desk, menaing I usually just close my eyes and hope its over soon...

[nbohr1more]

LOL

 

C'mon... is that a parody trailer from College Humor dot Com?

 

I might just have to see it for the "so bad it's good" factor.

[plasticman]

They are really developing a new interpretation of the classic material here. The movie is a promising attempt to show us the links between the past and the modern world, in terms of how revolutionary technical concepts, symbolized by gigantic flying war machines, make their impressions on leading figures of society and therefore influence the course of history itself. The fact that it comes in 3D is just a dispensable extra. NOT!

 

Are we going to give Bridgeport an airport to regulate all this traffic?

Airships don't need an airport, they can reside in the air all the time. All you need is to put some stairways on top of your favourite cathedral, see?

Picture is from A. Robida: Le Vingtième Siècle. That's what first came to my mind when I saw Drams wonderful airships.

 

I think there is no need to be concerned too much about these branch vs. core issues, since there is some sort of self-regulation: TDM's assets and machanics have been designed for a defined kind of gameplay. Doing something different instead of depending on these requires talent, time and dedication. Most people don't have that.

 

Even if those ships were inside the mod for anyone to use it would not be an average task to put them in a mission. Thinking about visportals and all that...

Edited August 2, 2011 by plasticman